Academic and Academic-Related staff contracts are deemed professional contracts by nature and as such defining a number of hours worked in any given week is inappropriate. However there is a process to ensure that staff are not over-loaded by using a workload planning process which aims to define the hours worked annually. This process is called Workload Allocation.

Each year the university publishes a Workload Allocation Template and each academic (and academic related) member of staff agrees their workload for the coming academic year with their line manager by mutual agreement within the terms and categories of the template. Where a dispute over workload occurs the first contact is the line manager for informal resolution. Should informal resolution not be achieved each Faculty operates a workload review process and staff should contact their Deanery for details.

To ensure transparency and equity faculties are required to publish staff workloads to enable comparison.